A Vigil Not Chosen
by Aubrey Black
Summary: Scully suffers through a night at the bedside of her wounded partner.


Today, it seems like the entire world is grey....  
  
I remember the day we first met.  
  
I walked into that stuffy, madcap office, and I was so full of trepidation that I didn't know what to do with myself. So I did what I always dotuations that I'm not sure of. I retreat into myself, wrap my  
  
professional attitude around me like an invisible suit of armor that will keep me from rejection, protect me from the disapproval in people's eyes.   
  
I walked in there and I could feel him mentally sizing me up, appearing to all the world as if he didn't give a damn about this small woman the powers-that-be had suddenly thrown into his life, but secretly paying attention to every word I said. I could feel his Oxford-trained mind ticking over, analysing every move I made. He was testing me, I suspected it at the time and know it now, seeing how far he could push, with his sarcastic comments, his apparent lack of concern for what I, or anyone, thought of him. And I was testing him right back, with my brusqe answers and my detached looks. We were putting out feelers, trying to work out even then how we would fit together in this unlikely partnership that had been thrust so suddenly upon us.   
  
He resented me then, but it was not a personal resentment. He was not concerned with me, but with what I stood for. I had been sent to curtail his investigations, to reign him in. To tame the wild streak that I now know they fear so deeply. The quiet, simmering strength that lies in Mulder, that part of him which enables him to go on in the face of the most devastating adversity. That part of him which, then unbeknown to our superiors, I seem to complement perfectly.   
  
No one understands us. They don't know what to make of us, when we show up in unknown towns on bizarre investigations, Mulder full of boyish enthusiasm, spouting his wild theories and ideas, me right behindhim, shouting contradictions all the way. It should never work. And yet through all our disagreements there is a thread of mutual respect - an unspoken code that can't be broken. We know that whichever of us is right, whichever is wrong, ultimately it doesn't matter. No matter what circumstances arise, I will stand by my partner. I will be there to support him. And he will be there for me. There have been times when I've doubted my ability to take another fall for him. Again and again, I've had to fly in the face of all I believe, all I know and all reasonable caution to follow blindly where Mulder leads, if not for my sake, then for his. Had I not been there for him over the last five years, who knows where he might be now. Whether or not I've been right, I've provided a voice of reason in his life. I've been the something that will, not nine times, not even five, but maybe three times out of ten, make him stop and think before he acts, if only for a split second. And I believe that in many circumstances, that split second of thought has saved his credibility, his job, and in some cases, even his life.   
  
Mulder owes me his life.  
  
And I owe him mine. Many times over.  
  
And it is because of this that I sit here today, cold and uncomfortable in a grey plastic chair in a grey hospital room, alone apart from the comatose man in the bed opposite me.  
  
My partner. Mulder.  
  
As I stare at his unmoving form, his strength, his size, his very masculinity not diminished by the threat of death hanging over him, I can hardly believe that he is in such mortal danger. He seems so peaceful, he could be asleep, only Mulder asleep in a bed would possibly be more disturbing even than this.   
  
Ha. That made me smile. I wish he were awake to have seen it - I smile precious little these days and I know it would have made him happy to see that one. To think - he may never see me smile again.... It makes me wish I'd smiled more around him. What a simple thing, yet how much it would mean to me now, just to smile at him and see him smile back. To know that it was me who had made him happy, happy enough to give me one of his wonderful Mulder smiles - as rare, if not more so, than my own.   
  
I have to stop thinking this way. Every time I do, the tears threaten again to cascade down my cheeks, and I must not let them see me cry. My God, I don't even know who I'm hiding my tears from anymore, all I know is the one who would normally comfort me is the one who has now reduced me to this. The tears shed so guiltily last night on my mother's shoulder are but a drop in the bucket - pardon my pun - compared to those left inside me. But inside is where they'll stay, and I will reserve them to shed on another shoulder, another day, when they will become tears of joy and relief. This is the way I live my life. I must remain strong. He is the only one in front of which this dam must break. Of that I am certain.  
  
And should he not live to give me that chance....  
  
My own life is small comfort when I think that he sacrificed everything to give it to me. Those bullets were meant for me - he saved me, and in doing so gave me more than any human being ever has. He's given me so much already - was it fair of God to require him to make this last, most grand gesture?  
  
But then, who am I to speak of God in a situation such as this? God is a part of me, not of Mulder. I'm sure if I asked him, he'd tell me in that flat, monotone way of his that allows no room for debate that God had grey skin, an iron deficiency, and came from a galaxy called Reticula. I have no doubt. And then he'd break into one of those smiles....  
  
And yet... I find myself praying over and over to a God who I have so many times deserted, so many times wondered if I have been deserted by in return. I suppose it is in times like these that we need a savior, someone to take matters out of our hands. We are so helpless, so small and defenseless against the forces at work in this life - a truth invariably hard for me to accept, no matter how many times I come up against it. Me, whose sole aim in life is to be in control, to present an air of having everything together. Me, whose life has been ripped apart, turned upside down so many times that I never know where I am, what is right and what is wrong. I've made the wrong decision so many times, torn in two and balanced precariously between Mulder's unshakeable quest, and the wavering strength of my own beliefs. And yet through it all I turn again and again to God, to a religion I left behind so long ago, and my faith grows with each tragedy, while Mulder's faith in what he believes continues to suffer bl ow after blow. His sister, so long sought, wants nothing to do with him. His aliens, our country's government, and all the shadowy men who endeavor to destroy him, he's been so far, and yet is no closer to any answers.   
  
And what good is truth without answers?  
  
And what good are answers if you're alone?  
  
Dear God, I just pray that he lives to find those answers out. I don't know if I'm strong enough to continue his quest in his absence - I don't even know if I'd want to. It's my devotion to Mulder, his powerful personality, and his need of me to keep him grounded that spur me on, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable differences, odds. The times we've been operating so far outside the law we couldn't even see it; the times that it seems all logic and common sense have escaped us and we're risking our careers and our lives on Mulder's intuition alone. And I've done it all for him. I have an overwhelming need to help this man, to save him from those who seek to destroy him. And, ultimately, to save him from himself. And in return, I need him. To lose him now would be worse, I think, than losingone of my family. Yes, guilty as I am to admit it to myself, but worse even than losing Missy. To lose Mulder now would be to lose a part of myself.   
  
I need this man. I love this man.  
  
And even as I finally admit this, I can feel him slipping away. God, I wish I could reach out and take his hand, his arm, anything to feel that he still exists. But I can't move. I know that under that thin hospital sheet, that strong, man's body is fighting for life. But what I'm afraid for is the twelve-year-old boy who lives inside the man. The twelve-year-old boy named Fox Mulder, spooky little kid whose sister has just disappeared, who is trying simply to block everything out. It's this little boy who will ultimately have the decision. And it's this little boy who I'm mortally afraid will simply give up....  
  
And so I sit here, as the minutes and hours tick by, and I know that the grey autumn day outside is quickly turning into a blustery autumn night. And I know I have to go home - Mom will be waiting, I haven't told her I'm coming over, but she'll know. I'll have to bring her down here to see him sometime, she loves him like a son, I know this is hard on her, too. And I know that the longer I sit here, the harder it's going to be for me to leave. But somehow, that incessant beeping of his heart monitor is soothing, stupefying, and all I can do is watch the steady rise and fall of his chest across the room as air is forced into it, up and down.   
  
And I can't move. I can't. I feel old. I feel tired. I feel....   
  
I'll just stay a few more minutes. Just a few more.... 


End file.
